Priya, 59 was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2022. She had a standard health insurance policy from Oriental, which only covered hospitalisation expenses. She had no add on options like critical illness or cancer cover with this policy, which means she had to bear the entire costs of medical tests, chemotherapy, doctor consulting charges, medicines all by herself.
Even though she had purchased the Health Shield policy from ICICI Lombard in December 2021 as a safety net, the policy had a clause that for the first 24 months the waiting period forfor specific Illness and treatment ( it included cancer), would be 24 months. This meant that for cancer treatment in 2022, she could not have made any claims.
